I am the former Co-CEO of KP Media, a leading Publisher in Ukraine. In addition to being the leading news organization in Ukraine (Korrespondent, Kyiv Post), we also owned the largest online business, Bigmir.net. I'm now back in the US, consulting and speaking in the areas of Digital Marketing and Digital innovation. You can find my website at www.DigitalTonto.com and follow me on Twitter @DigitalTonto.

How To Build An Effective Social Marketing Strategy

Brands like Harley Davidson built strong communities long before social media even existed. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

In the 20th century, nearly every marketing problem had one solution—the 30 second TV ad. If you had a product to sell, you could reach everybody you needed to with a powerful, highly polished message in a very short period of time.

So the basic function of marketing promotion has changed. It is no longer enough to simply grab attention, you need to be able to hold attention and that’s where social strategy comes in. The age of catchy slogans and massive ad campaigns is over. Brands in the 21st century need to become more like publishers and strategy needs to follow from that.

Clarifying The Mission

Content strategy has become a popular specialty in marketing lately. The problem is that very few content strategists actually know what they’re talking about. They tend to approach content as if it was just a longer version of an ad and therefore double the usual amount of psychobabble about the “consumer mindset.”

In truth, a publisher’s first loyalty is not to the consumer, but to the editorial mission. That doesn’t mean you should ignore consumers, trends or anything else that’s going on. What it does mean is that great publications stand for something.

AppleApple stands for design. Harley Davidson stands for friendship and camaraderie. Red BullRed Bull stands for an extreme lifestyle. These brands successfully engage consumers because the brand’s mission supersedes whatever they happen to be selling at any given time.

So the first thing you need to do to create a successful social strategy is figure out what you stand for.

Identifying Analogues

There is probably no greater peril in marketing than the misplaced compulsion to be original. Originality, after all, is not a virtue in and of itself, but only has value if it’s meaningful. Try to be different for difference’s sake and you’ll accomplish nothing more than being weird. That might thrill the guys in the office, but it will fail in the marketplace.

So the best way to start formulating a social strategy is to identify others who share your mission. What are they doing? What succeeds and what doesn’t? What can we add? What can we subtract? There’s no reason to try to reinvent the wheel.

When I was a professional publisher, we would insist on 3-5 analogues for any development or editorial brief and we found that practice absolutely essential. It not only helped us adopt best practices and avoid poor ones, it also helped everyone visualize exactly what we were trying to accomplish.

Focusing on Structure

Law and Order was one of the most successful TV shows in history. Running for 20 seasons, it not only ruled the ratings, but was a critical success as well.

Regular viewers of the show became familiar with its strict structure. First, a crime, then an investigation leading to an arrest and prosecution. Somewhere along the way a snag would be hit, creating tension that would drive the story. You could almost set your watch by it.

Every successful content product has a clearly defined structure. TV shows have plot formulas, radio stations have clocks, magazines have brand bibles and web sites have usability rules. These are strictly followed.

While this may seem boring in concept, creating a clear structure is absolutely crucial in practice. Any cognitive energy your audienceaudience uses up trying to navigate your content lessens the amount of energy they can spend on what you’re trying to tell them. A standard format is also helpful in setting the constraints under which creativity thrives.

A legendary editor once told me that a great content product delivers two things: consistency and surprise. I think the same is true with social marketing. You should set expectations, but also feel free to break the rules now an then. However, without consistency, there can be no surprise, you just make a mess.

Create A Community (Not An Audience)

Up till now, I’ve focused mainly on content. That’s deliberate, because without compelling content that informs, excites and inspires, social marketing doesn’t have a chance. It simply will not be effective. However, the mark of a great social marketing program is that it builds more than an audience—it builds a community.

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“A legendary editor once told me that a great content product delivers two things: consistency and surprise. I think the same is true with social marketing. You should set expectation, but also feel free to break the rules now and then.” This is so important to both content marketing and social media marketing. A set strategy is critical to succeeding because without it you cannot work towards a set goal. However, if you get too stuck in always doing the same thing, your followers will get bored. The trick? Make your “surprises” work with your strategy. By doing so, you continue to work towards your goal but also appear interesting and innovative.

“The truth is that the strength of your community has much less to do with how consumers are connected to you than how they are connected to each other.”

This is a great insight. You mentioned B2C brands — do you think this also applies to B2B brands, even if your clients might be direct competitors with one another? How would you apply the “community” aspect of content/social marketing to B2B brands?

I was actually making a technical point about social networks (see the link for a more in-depth explanation) and it applies to B2B as much as anything else. The strength of a community is derived from it’s density and many B2B businesses try to support this with events and other time honored practices. Social media can help as well, but only in a supporting role.

One thing to look out for though is networks that are too dense. Excessive density leads to group think.

Yes. Social activity in general is most successful when focused on community building and advocacy, rather than awareness and evaluation. For more detail you can see here: http://www.digitaltonto.com/2013/rethinking-marketing-strategy-for-the-digital-age/

You are trying to hard to transform marketeers into publishers, but the marketing industry is nos struggling the publishing industry is.

I have being involved in the publishing industry for 25 years, now I am in the marketing industry, and I can tell you that it is and has always being about selling products and services at the end of the day.